What Is a Psychological Profile: Connection to Mental Health
The term ‘psychological profile’ was developed first to help criminal investigators determine behavioral patterns and motivations that made perpetrators commit the crime. Yet today, this phrase has a wider definition and diverse application as its efficiency and helpfulness were appreciated by various industries, from sociology and statistics to mental health care and psychotherapy practices.
In this article, we decided to focus on the connection between psychological profiling as a working method and the mental health care industry. Let’s learn more about the psychological profile of someone, how it is developed, and which cases require it to be drawn.
What Is a Psychological Profile? – General Definition
The first mentions of what today is called a psychological profile lead back to the 1st century AD. At that time, a Roman rhetorician Quintilian mentioned in his essay some observations of the most common gestures people of his epoch used. The next historical example of psychological profiling is the odious Malleus Maleficarum, the codex written in the 15th century about witchcraft and describing typical psychological and physiological traits of witches. Then, some advanced steps in psychological profiling were made in the late 19th century by Italian psychologist Cesare Lombroso, who was engaged in criminal investigations and was the first one to describe and classify criminals according to their gender, age, physical and psychic characteristics, geography, and education levels. His study included a thorough analysis of more than 383 criminal cases and their perpetrator,s balancing on the edge of sociology, psychology, and criminology.
Later, Lombroso’s methods were developed and polished by criminologists who used the principles of psychological profiling for successful crime investigations, including the breakthrough case of the NYC ‘Mad Bomber.’
In the 70s, psychological profiling was officially picked up by the FBI, and since that time, it has been widely used around the globe for sociometries, criminology, and mental health evaluation.
Key Components of a Psychological Profile
As a psychological profile was primarily used for criminal investigations, its key components included the clues that remained on the crime scene. Yet today, the information for psychological profiles includes a wider list of data [1]:
- Age;
- Gender;
- Place of birth;
- Education;
- Marital status;
- Family history;
- Health and physical condition;
- Previous criminal background.
Today, the key components of psychometrics also include as following:
- Temperament: this feature can help understand the emotional and volitional sphere and predict the person’s reaction to events and overall type of interaction with the environment.
- Motivation: this is a combo of possible needs, purposes, and interests of a person that can impact their actions and reactions.
- Character traits: specific individual character traits and temperament are also decisive factors in the construction of a psychological profile.
- Individual preferences: the uniqueness of each person is hidden in the kit of personal preferences, including sexual preferences, hobbies, profession, communication style, etc.
- Values and beliefs: their specification helps understand the red flags of each person, and their possible reactions to some valuable events and taboos.
As a result, a psychological profile brings overall information about the personality, their potential, strengths and weaknesses, adaptation levels, and possible triggers.
Why Is a Psychological Profile Important in Mental Health?
Besides being informative about the current mental health of an individual, psychological profiles bring a diverse range of information crucial for mental health maintenance. Which insights can be highlighted by psychometric [2]?
- Predictive models of further behavior of a patient;
- Evaluation of the severity of mental issues’ symptoms and their recurrence;
- Thorough diagnostics and determination of the causes of mental health issues (i.e., inherited predisposition, childhood trauma, neglect, long-lasting traumatic experience).
All that helps a practitioner in MH assessment and further rehabilitation plan development.
Methods of Creating a Psychological Profile
Although psychological profiling has a long history, still, there are still four main methods in its construction.
Clinical Methods
This method is used by clinicians and criminologists if they suspect a person of interest of having a mental illness. For clinical methods, observation of a person’s behavior and overlooking diagnostic criteria of possible MH issues are regarded.
Typological Methods
Typological approach refers to the classification of a person into any group which has similar traits. For example, if a person of interest acts typically for a suicidal or self-harm group, it can be classified in their psychological profile as belonging to this group.
Geographical Methods
Geographical methods focus on demographic traits and peculiarities to decide on the residence/birth place of a person of interest, their possible race or nationality.
Investigative Methods
Investigative approach relies on behavioral and criminal psychology theories and methods to create a person’s profile based on observed and investigated behavioral characteristics and emotional patterns.
Types of Psychological Profiles
As each individual is a unique and multi-featured system of thoughts, emotions, feelings, and temper, there are various psychological profiles you can develop for a single person. Some psychologists insist on using one of the personality types’ classifications (i.e., Myers-Briggs Type Indicator [3] or the Enneagram model [4]). Others decide on the type of psychological profile by testing peculiar abilities:
- Psychometric aptitude testing;
- Behavior testing;
- Personality testing;
- Emotional intelligence testing.
How to Develop a Psychological Profile?
The methods and techniques are volatile in psychological profile development, but the core principle remains the same:
- Observation and behavioral analysis. When you observe a person of interest, you can highlight their traits, behavioral patterns, habits, motives, and typical reactions.
- Interviewing the person of interest. Live talks and questionnaires are a mighty source of information you need for a psychological profile.
- Written sources examination and analysis. This includes investigations of diaries, social media pages, and letters of a person of interest. Sometimes, the techniques of free writing are also helpful to get additional information for a psychological profile.
- Psychological tests are the ultimate helper which you can use to specify character traits, temperament, etc.
- Projective methods and behavioral experiments are the basics for profiling, as they help determine the causes and triggers of problematic behavior or decision-making strategies a person uses.
The results of all these methods and practices should be categorized, analyzed, and then collected into a psychological profile.
Examples of Psychological Profiles
So, how are these diverse approaches and methods implemented in criminology and psychology? Let’s take a couple of examples of effective psychological profiling:
- The profile of notorious Jack the Reaper, who murdered dozens of women in Victorian England, was among the first examples of what today is called a psychological profile. Crime scene evidence helped investigators to suggest he was a male who hated sex workers and was misogynistic due to possible trauma or abuse issues.
- In 1984, detective Robert Keppel managed to create psychological profiles of two notorious serial killers, Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway. He was the first to insist that Bundy’s attractiveness and charisma helped the murderer to entitle his victims.
- Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was also caught with the help of psychological profiling as investigators collected his crimes in a series according to his typical behaviors, which included issues of hostility and ambivalence towards his victims and the habit of taking memorable things from his victims’ bodies.
What Are the Implications of Psychological Profiles on Treatment?
Today, mental health specialists often write a psychological profile of their patients in addition to MH evaluation. They do this for the following reasons:
- To provide a thorough diagnosis for a patient based not only on current symptoms but on psychometric.
- To customize treatment options, making them more effective for a particular patient. For example, when deciding on treatment options for two separate people with anxiety disorder while one of them is a pregnant woman of middle class, and another is a lady in a menopause living in a marginal area, psychological profile may be helpful to decide on the efficiency and contraindications of medication, type of therapy accessible for each patient, family therapy, etc.
- To evaluate the possible risks of a patient developing mental health issues according to their profile.
Brief Summaries
Dating back to the 60s and even earlier, the concept of psychological profiling has developed and become more precise and multi vectoral. Psych profiles are still in great demand in criminology as a tool for understanding causes, motives, and behavioral patterns of criminals, yet they come in handy in non-criminological routines as well. Thanks to psychological profiling, mental health specialists can provide more thorough diagnostics and decide on the most efficient treatment when psychometric is added to health evaluation methods.
In URP Behavioral Health, we consider psychological profiling to be a supportive diagnostic method although it is not the ultimate thing to rely on solely. We use it for the sake of precise therapy choice to consider the specifics of each patient’s background, family, individual, and geographical traits.
Resources:
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-59745-109-3_4
- https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overview-of-the-psychological-profiling-methodology-i-A-dataset-of-psychological_fig1_358040202
- https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/the-16-mbti-personality-types/
- https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions/
